Performance Evaluation of NRCRI CassavaStem Cutting Machine

Abstract - The NRCRI developed cassava stem cutting machine was evaluated. It has the overall dimension of 101.5 x 51 x 120cm. A performance test was carried out on the machine using three different cassava varieties of varying sizes. Also two different cutting velocities of 1.23 and 1.32ms were used for the evaluation. The cassava stems were fed manually into hopper while the cam mechanism controls the dropping rates of the cassava stems to the cutting unit. Test results showed that the highest cutting efficiency of 99.15 was obtained for the TME 419 cassava variety with stem size of 2.0cm and machine cutting velocity of 1.23ms while the lowest cutting efficiency of 94.11 was obtained for TMS 30572 with stem size of 2.6cm and machine cutting velocity of 1.32ms. The output capacities of the machine were 944 and 984stakesmin for the cutting velocities of 1.23 and 1.32 respectively. The quality of the produced stakes was very good and showed satisfactory germination performance. The machine should be recommended for maximum production of cassava stakes to encourage mechanization of cassava production.